


This Thing They Have

by hestia_lacey



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:34:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hestia_lacey/pseuds/hestia_lacey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a sort of 'what if?' tag to Quarantine. What if Rodney had finally proposed to Katie? What if Katie had said yes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Thing They Have

“What are you doing up here?” Rodney asks, stepping out of the shadowed stairwell into John’s hiding place. John knew better than to think Rodney wouldn’t find him, wherever he holed up.

“Watchin,’” he answers, dipping his head ever so slightly to acknowledge the vibrant, swirling mass of people gathered below, colour and movement and too much liquor transforming the jubilant crowd into a dynamic kaleidoscope that tilts and fragments, reforms and falls apart again as John looks on.

Below, in Atlantis’ reception hall, Teyla fits her hands to the slight new baby-swell of Jeannie Miller’s middle and smiles up at her, warm and familiar, while her son plays with the hem of her skirt, mesmerised by the play of light across the fabric. On the dancefloor, Ronon shapes his palms to Cadman’s hips and pulls her back against his chest; she laces her fingers into his where they hook into her belt loops and tilts her head back, laughing into a slow kiss. Music beats clear and bass-heavy all around, setting a pulse to the surging crowd and vibrating pleasurably through John’s body. Rodney’s eyes, drawn down to the scene, flick dismissively over the throng catching only on Jeannie and Teyla, heads bent conspiratorially low, and Ronon and Cadman, dancing close and sensual. He smiles, full of honest affection and not-a-little love, and John feels the room fall apart, reform around it.

“Watching,” Rodney repeats sardonically, eyes still focussed elsewhere, and then, “Wallflower.” He turns to face John at that, leaning back against the stairwell wall and crossing his arms, dipping his chin. That smile is still there, accented with humour. The weight of it rests solely on John now, stretched between the two of them hidden away up high, and John knows he’s in trouble when he smiles back without taking the time to tuck his secrets safely away.

In his palm, the glass of his stolen liquor is warm and John is absolutely too drunk to handle this, this thing, safely.

“Yeah,” he replies eventually, helplessly low and warm and smiling up at Rodney through his eyelashes.

He doesn’t know what exactly Rodney sees in him then, but it’s enough to make him straighten and push away from the wall, nervous, make him flutter his hands between John and the room below.

John forgets that this, this thing he has for Rodney isn’t supposed to show.

“You should go down,” Rodney says, voice forcibly casual to John’s attuned ears. “There’s punch. Radek made it with the paint stripper he brews up with Parrish in botany so it really does… y’know, punch.” John, who’s been drinking the paint stripper straight for the last two hours, already knows that.

“There’s also dancin’,” John replies, dipping his head toward the crowd and taking great care to form his words correctly. On the dancefloor, Lorne and Parrish are engaged in what appears to be a dance-off between the military and civilian personnel; John really, really doesn’t want know about it.

But watching them, there is a moment, unbidden, when John thinks about what it would be like to dance with Rodney, the fantasy startlingly clear in his mind: Rodney’s hands pulling him into the cradle of his hips, tight, the feel of Rodney’s key-stroke calloused fingertips against the sensitive flesh beneath his waistband, and the way Rodney’s shoulders would fit into his palms. John blinks it away.

“Risk isn’t worth the reward,” he explains to Rodney, who stares on appalled as Lorne removes his shirt and uses it to lasso Colonel Carter, spinning her in to face Esposito who replaces Parrish with a shimmy of her hips. Everything is shape and colour and light: kaleidoscope, John thinks, watching everything slide around him, mesmerising.

“So you’re just going to sit up here in the dark, all on your own for the entire evening?” Rodney’s question shatters the pattern the dancers almost formed on the black of John’s heavy eyelids. John’s gaze is drawn to Rodney instead and is instantly captivated by the new palette, the kaleidoscope of blue he presents; bright eyes and soft shirt and back to sky-pretty eyes, the slope of Rodney’s mouth and the broad span of his shoulders, the curve of his spine and the faint scar on the inside of his arm. Rodney watches John look at him and frowns into John’s eyes, like John had presented Rodney with a problem he should be able to solve. Under Rodney’s scrutiny, John feels the world slide again: curiously, Rodney remains still amid the blur.

“Not alone,” he replies, dragging his eyes from the open neckline of Rodney’s navy shirt slowly up the line of Rodney’s throat to meet his gaze.

“What?” Rodney jumps slightly, draws himself up straight and looks nervously into the shadowed corners of the balcony, under the table behind John as though John had secreted someone there, and when he finds nothing raises a confused eyebrow at John.

John slowly uncrosses his arms and shakes a clear glass jar at Rodney, a rueful smile stretching across his lips. The pearlescent liquor inside is instantly recognisable as it sloshes up the sides of the almost empty container. Rodney looks appalled again, but the question he had on his face is gone, as though the jar was full of the answer.

“Is that - ”

“Moonshine. Swiped it.” John’s smile brightens, melts his mouth into genuine curve of amusement and pushes into his eyes, dark and mischievous and utterly unrepentant. He raises the jar, and swallows a mouthful straight down, sparkling green-gold eyes still smiling and fixed unwaveringly on Rodney. Rodney’s eyes widen comically, and he sputters wordlessly for a moment before his flailing hands manage to catch his words, and he explodes into a bluster of “You’re drinking it neat? Sheppard! That’s like swilling industrial strength steriliser! I think they use that stuff as surface cleaner in the mess!”

The flutter of Rodney’s hands moves the walls, a long grey-bronze shift of colour, and John uses the heat in Rodney’s eyes to anchor himself down. When everything slows again, John feels an answering heat rise unbidden and inevitable in his limbs, a warm beat starting at the base of his spine. John knows this feeling, recognises in himself the reckless tease an excess of alcohol always brings out. A distant part of him panics at the thought of being around Rodney like this, but John can’t think why that should be so unnerving a prospect, not when everything is soft and glowing and Rodney.

So John smiles just like he wants to, all heat and invitation and arches back against the balcony railing, deliberate and provocative. “Want some?” he asks, voice night-rough, looking up through his eyelashes at Rodney, reaching out and pulling him, so slowly, close with one hand twisted into the fabric of his shirt, the other raising the jar to Rodney’s lips.

Rodney swallows, blinks, looks down at John’s mouth and then hurriedly away, gaze skittering down John’s unzipped collar and across the shadows visible in the hollow of his throat, nervously darting to John’s hands clenched in his shirt, curled around the jar, and finally settling with an audible gulp on the hem of John’s rolled up shirt sleeve, resting in the innocuous crook of his arm.

“N-no!” Rodney splutters eventually, flushing, pushing John abruptly back down into his seat with one hand and using the other to bat the jar away from his lips. “And please, please tell me you haven’t drank all of that yourself.” It’s a rhetorical question, really: John’s body is uncharacteristically open, his eyes full of the colours and shadows he usually locks deep away. Rodney is flushed and flustered, certainly (it is, after all, how John likes him best), but doesn’t seem at all surprised by John’s sudden intimacy, the press of his hands and the invitation in his limbs, and if John had been more sober he would have remembered that they pretend John’s thing is really nothing at all, pretend that it’s still a secret.

“Nah.” John drawls in response, sprawling back into the chair without letting go of Rodney’s shirt. Rodney looks sceptical, and resists John’s forward pull with one hand braced on the balcony rail behind John’s head and a knee resting between John’s on his chair. Rodney is attempting (unsuccessfully) to pry John’s grasping fingers from his twisted shirt front when John laughs, deep and low and hot, arches his hips to pull himself level with the shell of Rodney’s ear and confesses, “Ronon knocked one back,” right before he brings the jar back to his lips to take the last shot.

“Oh my God, give me that!” Rodney demands, abandoning his attempts to free himself in favour of relieving John of what remains of his moonshine like confiscating it would somehow make a difference at this point. A very, very distant part of John appreciates the gesture, futile though it clearly is.

As Rodney collapses forward into John’s lap, John throws back the rest of the jar. Rodney frowns down at John, who grins back up and flicks his tongue out to lick the last taste of alcohol off his lips, making sure to catch every drop, deliberately to annoy the other man. Rodney rolls his eyes at the juvenile display, and while he can’t bite back the smile that lights his eyes, he tries. Rodney’s amusement lowers his guard, and he lets himself settle more comfortably into John.

John blinks dazedly into the smile and movement in his lap. The indent Rodney’s teeth make in his bottom lip is… and the press of his weight … it’s fascinating.

Eyes still on the slope of Rodney’s mouth, John carefully sets his empty jar down on the table. Rodney tracks the slow movement, wary, and John feels his breathing deepen, become heavier between them. It sounds almost like panic, but John knows the difference between that and… and this.

The kaleidoscope twists slow and warm around him now, careless, swirling light and heat. John feels himself falling slowly sideways into the movement and reaches out to Rodney to steady himself, hands stroking down his sides and catching on the jut of Rodney’s hip. Rodney’s breath hitches as John’s palms settle over the fabric, the very tips of his fingers reaching over Rodney’s waistband to press, a barely-there pressure, against Rodney’s skin.

John is still watching Rodney’s mouth, lips parted, gleaming in the yellow light when his tongue slips out the moisten them.

Another tilt and shift of the kaleidoscope, and the moment, the space between them is reconfigured.

John wonders about the texture of Rodney’s lips, how the slant of them would taste, and leans up, in.

Rodney shifts slightly back, uncertain, pressing his hips down unintentionally into John’s as he moves, but going nowhere near as far away as he should. The way he shifts makes John’s breath hitch, and the not-quite-silent, so soft sound it teases from John stills Rodney again, calls a slight flush into his cheeks. John’s hands fit more firmly to Rodney’s hips, slide carefully up under the hem of his shirt to trace the line of his ribs, and Rodney, eyes bright and hot, can’t seem make himself move.

They’re not supposed to do this, but here they are, world a shifting kaleidoscope around them both, poised on a spinning edge, one shift away from falling together and John doesn’t know what to make of that.

Neither, it seems, does Katie Brown, who appears in a clatter of heels and a flash of butter-gold silk at the top of the stairwell and just… stares at them, tangled up together in the chair, teetering on the edge of a kiss. The noise of her heels and the bright yellow of her dress shatters the fragile, uncertain shape John had formed with Rodney, and John can almost hear the pieces of it fall down around him, fall apart.

John becomes immediately and incredibly self-conscious. He can feel the hot flush of colour spread high across his cheeks, knows the liquid glaze in his eyes, the sprawl of his limbs, the part of his lips: his whole damn body is an invitation, directed unmistakably at Rodney.

Rodney goes immediately rigid and awkward in his lap and between the picture he knows he makes and Rodney’s tangible discomfort, John knows exactly how bad this looks.

“Rodney?” Katie asks, confused, one slender hand coming up to brush a fall of red hair away from her pretty face.

“Katie,” Rodney says, pushing himself up and away from John in a fluster of movement. As his weight lifts away, John feels a knot form in his gut, dense and bitter. Shame rises in him, searing hot, as Rodney’s body heat, cupped in John’s lap, cools and fades away.

“Hi,” John offers, voice thick and quiet, hands curling into themselves, into the space Rodney’s hips had filled. John gathers himself up, draws himself back in, averts his eyes as Rodney moves towards Katie, hand outstretched to her, and swallows down on the guilt and disgrace rising like bile in his throat.

They don’t do that, John isn’t supposed to let this stupid thing he has show because Rodney is straight, Rodney is his best friend and Rodney is going to marry Katie Brown.

Christ, that’s the whole reason they’re throwing this fucking party, the reason John needed more than one drink in the first place, and John feels so incredibly dirty, so shameful, and every single bit the slut people whisper him to be. His stomach twists, cold and hollow, and he has to lean forward to ease the painful pressure.

“It’s getting late,” Katie says from the doorway, tangling her fingers in Rodney’s and smiling earnestly through her confusion as she looks uncertainly between John and Rodney. “I thought we might… head back?” The glow in her eyes and the dip of her head, her sweet, coy smile, is both forgiveness and an unmistakable invitation of her own. John imagines Rodney’s broad fingers trailing along the swooping neckline of her dress, against her delicate, pale skin. They’d look good together, John thinks, and it hurts him – a twisting pressure in his chest – to acknowledge that. The shapes and colours shifting around him are suddenly sharp, their movement jagged, and John has to close his eyes against their sting.

“Right, right, sure,” Rodney says, breathless. “Um, Colonel - ” he begins, but John can’t deal with any more of this right now, forces his eyes open, and interrupts Rodney to say -

“S’okay Rodney. Go. I’m gonna…” He uncurls his body, stands up as best he can and tries to walk away, but the kaleidoscope twists sudden and fast, and John feels himself slide, slip sideways with the motion, totally without foundation.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

John doesn’t hear Rodney’s voice, but feels the words rumble against his back, reverberating in the dark washing over his vision. John is lost in a tumble of colour, blue and red, in and a tide of bitter jealousy and shame and painful want; Rodney’s arms are just there, strong now around John’s waist and along his shoulder, and are a comforting support in the confusion. John leans back into them, closes his eyes and manages, weakly, “Huh. Maybe not.”

Nothing makes sense right now. In the shifting, timeless black behind his eyelids, John can hear Rodney’s voice, pleading and apologetic, a low counterpoint to Katie’s soft, unusually agitated murmur. The form of each word is lost in the vibration of the music still singing along John’s bones, but he’s been in enough trouble himself to know what it sounds like, and he hates that he’s the cause of it.

Katie’s voice spits out John’s name, a livid splash in the swirling darkness, and John feels Rodney’s arms tighten imperceptibly, protectively around him. John curls instinctively into the pressure and hears, beneath the strong base beat of the music, the angry snap of Katie’s heels sounding loud against the deck, fading away.

Rodney sighs, a frustrated sound, and it’s John’s turn to tighten his hold. After a long moment standing together with Rodney, John opens his eyes on the turning world again and finds himself looking up into Rodney’s down turned face.

“Hey,” Rodney says, quietly, a small, rueful smile plucking at the corner of his mouth.

“M’sorry,” John slurs, using the arm he has around Rodney’s neck to pull their foreheads together, the curiously intimate and simultaneously formal Athosian embrace safer between them than anything else right now. “Sorry,” he whispers again into the space created between them.

Rodney shakes his head and after a moment pushes John carefully back. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispers back.

It does. John knows it does.

John blinks, and a moment or a minute could have passed as they stand together; he doesn’t know the difference right now. He feels Rodney inhale deeply, Rodney’s hand absently petting his side.

Then: “Okay, let’s go,” Rodney says, suddenly brusque, shifting so that John’s uneasy weight is balanced more steadily against him. With the heat and familiar scent of Rodney so close, with Rodney the only point of reference in John’s spinning world, John can’t think.

“Go where?” He asks, wrapping his fingers into Rodney’s shirtsleeve as he tries to step forward and finds himself sliding backward instead, eyes tracking the fractured lines of orange and green light that bubble up Atlantis’ walls towards the ceiling.

“Christ, you’re drunk,” mutters Rodney as he steadies John again, and though John can’t focus long enough to see, he knows Rodney is rolling his eyes in helpless, irritable affection. It makes John smile to think of the picture Rodney makes, and when he feels the happiness stretch across his mouth he recalls the way the world shifted around Rodney’s own lips on the balcony and wonders if Rodney always feels like John did right then, with Katie to love him now.

“Hey, Rodney?” he hears himself ask, voice smaller than he thinks it should be. Then, as they make their stumbling way slowly along the length of the balcony, John gathers himself enough to ask: “You’re happy, right? I mean, really.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney exclaims, and John can hear the horror and disbelief in his voice. Because really, feelings? They not supposed to do those either.

Rodney doesn’t slow down to answer, concentrating instead on manoeuvring John’s awkwardly loose body around a tight corner.

When he gets no response, John twists in Rodney’s grasp prompting a pointed, “What? What are you talking about now?” from Rodney.

“With… y’know, with Katie,” John says, tucking in close to Rodney again as they make their way haltingly down a short staircase towards the main residential corridor.

“Katie? Why would I not be?” Rodney asks, preoccupied, attention on their feet as they reach the last step. John slumps forward, trusting Rodney to catch him and right him before he falls. Rodney does, setting John upright with a glare that makes John giggle.

The sound pulls an involuntary smile from Rodney again, and for a moment John forgets that Rodney hasn’t answered his question.

“Rodney. You are, though, right?” John prompts after another sliding minute in which they follow the curve of the corridor towards John’s room, John leaning ever further into Rodney’s side.

Rodney still doesn’t answer, so John throws his body back, a dead weight against Rodney’s side that pulls the other man to a stop in the hallway. The sharp glare Rodney turns on him blunts when he looks John in the face. It’s important that Rodney answer this, that he answer John truthfully, because John’s pretty sure he’s given everything of himself for Rodney to be happy.

Rodney looks at John where he’s slumped back against the corridor wall, really looks at him and finds something written across him, in John, that turns his blue eyes soft and bright, something that makes him answer low and earnest, unblinking, “Yes, John. Yeah, I am.”

The quiet admission settles heavy on John’s shoulders, pulls his eyes closed and dries his mouth.

“Good. S’good,” he scrapes past the crack opening in his throat, dipping his head, feeling like an absolute bastard because the whole thing makes him hurt, because he has to lie about Rodney’s happiness. Lie to Rodney.

“Okay,” Rodney says, voice catching strangely, and John can’t tell if he heard the falsity or not.

“Can we move now?” Rodney asks a moment later, impatient, sounding more like himself. John pushes himself back into the curve of his body and receives a sarcastic “thank you,” in response. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Together, moving slowly, they sway along the residential corridor, weaving a meandering path towards John’s quarters. John is leaning most of his weight on Rodney’s shoulders now, and Rodney is panting slightly under the strain. John leans in closer, as close as he can get, and closes his eyes trusting Rodney not to let him trip or stumble over or into anything (or nothing at all).

“Oh, finally,” Rodney gasps, as they reach John’s section and the door to John’s room sweeps open before they’re even close enough to slump through it.

Rodney guides John into his quarters and the door slides quietly shut behind them.

The lights stay low, a barely-there glow that’s just bright enough for Rodney to navigate them across the small space between the door and John’s bed. Rodney’s hand clasps John’s wrist, gently, and tries to lift John’s arm from where it rests along his shoulder, tries to lay him back against the mattress.

This is when John knows he should let go. Fall back onto his bed, fall into sleep and then let himself fall into guilt about what he’s done in the morning. And he means to do just that, he really does, but when Rodney moves away from his body John feels himself lose purchase again, slide into the swirl of moonlight shadows inked up his bedroom wall and he grasps at Rodney to anchor himself in the spin. His arm hooks around Rodney’s shoulder, behind his neck, and John’s foot catches around Rodney’s ankle; when John falls back, Rodney falls with him and they land together on the bed, a jumble of limbs on the smooth sheets.

Rodney’s body, broad and solid, lays along the entire long length of John’s; his entire weight presses John down into the bed and John has never felt more secure than he does laid out underneath him. The world is a dizzy, disorienting whirl in the corner of John’s eyes, but here, right here, he doesn’t feel like the currents will pluck him away and down, under.

Rodney’s cheek is stubble-rough and warm against the side of John’s neck, his breath hot and moist against the skin there, running down to pool in the hollow of John’s throat. John’s arm is still hooked behind Rodney’s head, and he moves it back to give Rodney some space, trailing his fingers along the line of Rodney’s shoulders and letting them tangle in the fine, silk-soft hair at the nape of Rodney’s neck. Rodney swallows then, and pushes himself up onto his palms, blinking down at John under him. His eyes are dark and impossibly blue in the night light streaming across them both, and John has never seen anything as heartbreakingly beautiful in all his life.

“Hi,” John whispers, smiling up into Rodney’s dark, confused gaze, helpless to censor himself.

Rodney licks his lips, takes a shaky breath and murmurs “Um, hello.” His body shifts above John, and John is immediately aware of every place they touch: the warmth of Rodney’s thigh against the inside of John’s left leg, pulled up to frame Rodney’s hip; the flex of Rodney’s calf where John’s ankle rests on it; the slight, teasing friction of Rodney’s fingers against John’s side, clenching in the sheets for balance; the cotton-soft press of Rodney’s shirt against the skin of John’s stomach, bared where his t-shirt has ridden up above his waistline.

The tickle of hair against John’s fingertips as he pushes his fingers around to cup Rodney’s head.

Rodney’s eyes widen as he recognises the same places, the same touches. There is another moment, another minute. His breath hitches, and he tries to push himself up and away from John only to shudder and fall still, suddenly and completely, when John spreads his legs wider, slides one leg fully around Rodney’s waist and pulls Rodney’s body down to his.

In the kaleidoscope John’s spinning in, the shape of Rodney’s body is the only piece that fits into his own jagged edge, and John wants to know every contour, every shade of this match they make.

Rodney’s breath comes shallow and deep, and his voice shakes slightly as he asks, “John?”

John strokes one hand through Rodney’s hair, traces the shell of his ear and lets the other drift down Rodney’s side, counting ribs.

“Mmm?”

“What are you doing?” is Rodney’s next question, his voice breaking half-way through the sentence as John’s fingers run up the knife scar, feint on the inside of his arm even after three years.

“Nothin’,” John drawls, lost in his exploration, closing his fingers over the pulse point in Rodney’s wrist and counting the beats. John lets his eyes slide shut, pulls Rodney’s forehead down to rest against his own and settles back into the sheets, body safe, right, under Rodney’s.

Rodney’s body relaxes instinctively into John’s, though he holds himself carefully still. The beat of the music is replaced by the wash of Rodney’s breathing, the thud of his heart and John loses himself in the rhythms.

“John?” Rodney asks after several long, hushed moments have passed.

“Hmm?”

“You, ah, want to let go of me anytime soon?”

John’s voice is sad and soft as he answers, with painful honesty, “No. No, I don’t.” John’s body answers too, slipping his other leg up around Rodney’s waist, sliding both hands over Rodney’s shoulders, fitting them together as close as he can.

John is a desperate press of heat under him, dangerously open, vulnerable, and Rodney wants to press into him and pull away all at once, to moan a yes and scream no at the same time.

“John, what - ”

“Just… just a minute, Rodney,” John pleads, opening his eyes to look into Rodney’s as he asks, “Just, please?” and God, John is begging for this, and it makes Rodney’s heart pound, makes his eyes sting because he can’t say no to this man, and they don’t do this but Christ, he wants to so badly.

“J-John,” he stutters as John’s hips shift beneath his. Rodney can’t help the way his own hips press down and just like that, just like on the balcony, John finds himself paused on the spinning edge, closer to falling than ever.

John’s hands slide down from Rodney’s shoulders, sweep along the edge of his collar bones and then up his neck to cup his face gently between his palms, fingers curling behind Rodney’s ears, stroking the skin there.

“Oh,” Rodney gasps, turning his face into John’s caress and trailing one hand down John’s side, tracing his fingers across the skin exposed at John’s waistband, curling his palm around John’s hip and pushing himself away from John, even as his own hips press in closer again.

“Please,” John whispers, arching up, pulling Rodney’s face down until his mouth is over John’s, so close that John’s lips catch against Rodney’s as he breathes, “Can I - ” and then closes the space between them to kiss Rodney full on the mouth, curiously chaste and achingly, shatteringly soft.

And then, it’s freefall, pieces everywhere.

Rodney makes a broken, surprised sound in the back of his throat, parts his lips on a helpless moan and John swallows the sound, licks hungrily into Rodney’s mouth, sucks Rodney’s tongue into his own and bites into Rodney’s lower lip.

Rodney’s hands run back up John’s sides, catch John’s wrists and push them up into the sheets above his head as Rodney’s hips thrust down into John’s, stuttering when John tightens his legs around Rodney’s waist. Rodney’s fingers trace the line of John’s brow as they kiss, deep and messy, frame his face and trail down his neck, nails scoring hot lines there when John gasps into his mouth, throws his head back into the sheets. Rodney’s mouth moves to the inviting column of John’s throat, soothing the red scrapes there and biting into the skin, making John cry out wordlessly. The sound breaks another part of Rodney open and he lets his hands drift to the zipper of John’s shirt, easing it open and then pushing it back and up, over John’s arms and off.

Rodney’s starting to see the pieces, and wants to understand them, know them, just like John.

John arches his back, pressing himself into Rodney’s fingers, into Rodney’s hands as they explore the ridge of his ribs, dip into his navel, into his waistband. John’s own fingers reach out, up, fumble desperately with the cool, round, too-smooth buttons of Rodney’s shirt, loosing them one by one until he can push it back and down, off and away. When Rodney’s chest is bared, John clumsily pulls Rodney down to his body, Rodney’s mouth back to his, hot and wet, and this is… this is what he wants, so badly, to be here, skin to skin, close. Fixed.

Rodney’s hands hook into John’s waistline, follow the rough fabric around to the zipper, to the hardness straining against the fabric and press down; John almost screams into Rodney’s mouth at the pressure, the sensation, the heat he can feel even through the layers fabric. His whole body shakes with it, with this consuming want, pleasure, and shakes even more when Rodney hooks his hands behind John’s knees and push his legs up and out, letting Rodney push his own hardness against John’s, press his body into John spread out on the bed.

“John, what are – w-we, oh…” Rodney pants, gasping when John rubs his thumbs over his nipples, teasing them into hardened nubs. Rodney’s mouth is slack with desire, his eyes hot and dark and blue as they look down into John’s. And John understands, because they don’t do this, they make-believe this thing doesn’t exist between them, but John can’t deny it when they’re doing all the things they pretend they don’t want.

“John, I can’t – you can’t…you’re…” Rodney goes on, because they don’t do this, because Rodney is getting married and because John is nowhere near sober right now.

“No, I know,” John answers, but he lets his fingers tug at Rodney’s fly anyway, lets Rodney strip him, unfold him part by part, lay him out naked and press spit-slick fingers into John’s body, stretch him open.

“We shouldn’t – we should stop,” Rodney pants even as John flips them over, rolls a condom onto Rodney’s cock.

“I know, I know,” John whispers, as he lowers himself onto Rodney, leans down to kiss him as he slides in, inside John, hard and deep, the final piece falling into place.

John rides Rodney slow, long and desperate, lets Rodney fuck him through his orgasm and into his own, whispers “sorry, I’m so sorry,” into Rodney’s mouth as he comes and pretends he can’t taste salt on their lips.


End file.
